Hot topics in food microbiology
15 October 2026
Member: £149 + VAT /
Non-member: £190 + VAT
Group discounts available. Contact Training
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Summary
Join us to discuss the industry’s most pressing concerns, as our popular annual ‘Hot topics in food microbiology’ conference returns.
Food poisoning and spoilage cost the food industry a considerable amount each year.
This popular annual conference will consist of an assortment of subjects of interest in the world of food microbiology and safety. Subjects include:
- Cereulide: Growth behaviour
- Challenges with novel processes
- Understanding Cyclospora issues
- The use of AI in investigating a foodborne STEC outbreak
- Biofilms and detection strategies
- The impact of climate change on the UK food system
Who should attend?
This is a must attend conference for food and drinks microbiologists, technical managers, food manufacturers, quality assurance staff, food safety managers, buyers etc.
Event Director
Fiona Cawkell
Exhibiting
Programme
| Time | Presentation |
|---|---|
| 08:45 | Registration and arrival refreshments |
| 09:00 | Welcome and Chairman’s introduction Dr Jeff Banks, Food Safety Assurance |
| 09:15 | AMR in the food chain This presentation will briefly cover why antimicrobial resistance (AMR) matters, the role of the food chain in transmission of AMR, FSA surveillance of AMR in food and our commitment to the UK National Action Plan for AMR. Dr Kathryn Callaghan, FSA |
| 09:55 | Validation considerations for novel processes A brief introduction to the validation of novel food processing technologies, including High Pressure Processing (HPP) and UV-C treatment. The presentation will explore key considerations when developing validation studies, highlighting both the similarities and differences between novel technologies and established thermal processes Robbie McGill, Campden BRI |
| 10:35 | Hot News! An update on our sponsor’s products |
| 11:00 | Refreshment break and an opportunity to view the exhibits |
| 11:20 | Understanding Cyclospora outbreaks This talk will provide background information about the protozoan parasite Cyclospora and its emergence as an important cause of foodborne illness. In the UK most infections are among returning travellers to endemic countries, especially Mexico in recent years. Outbreaks in North America this year have increased concerns about the food supply. This presentation will look at the nature of Cyclospora outbreaks and the work being done to understand them, and emerging risks will be discussed. Prof Rachel Chalmers, Public Health Wales |
| 12:00 | Hot News! an update on our sponsors products |
| 12:25 | Lunch and an opportunity to view the exhibits |
| 13:30 | Leveraging AI and supply chain knowledge to solve a major STEC outbreak We investigated the large (>500 cases, >70 HUS cases, 3 deaths; median age 7) of rare STEC O45:H2 (ST301) 2025 outbreak of STEC in Germany using blended AI and Natural Intelligence (NI) tools and leveraging a hybrid analytical framework combining LLM queries (Google Gemini Ultra), real-time retail inventory tracking, and human epidemiological analysis. Historical and cross-pathogen benchmarking prompted the AI to identify previous outbreaks with similar geographic clusters, vulnerable demographics, and pathogen behaviours—referencing an earlier 2025 Salmonella infantis incident in Germany/Austria linked to cold-mixed organic cashew butter containing contaminated raspberries. Using dynamic geolocation and supply chain information we tracked real-time store availability of promotional freeze-dried raspberry products across DM-drogerie markt German retail stores and correlated stock availability/depletion directly with local onset dates of clinical cases. We cross-referenced supplier intelligence with international food safety alerts, including UK Health Security Agency and FSA traceback on Hepatitis A in frozen raspberries as well as Serbian veterinary studies. We suspect that German public health authorities experienced investigation delays due to fears of repeating past misidentifications (e.g., historical STEC false alarms on Spanish produce). AI helped bypass cognitive bias by rapidly screening non-obvious low-moisture vehicles of contamination. AI signalled freeze-dried fruits as a concern and identified Serbia and a particular agri-food processor as the potential source of contaminated fruit. By using granular retail data as an epidemiological tool, we postulated that real-time scraped inventory data could serve as an accurate proxy for exposure: clinical cases appeared when the product was in stock and stopped once local stores sold out. The implicated Serbian raspberry supplier was linked across multiple distinct pathogen outbreaks (STEC O45:H2, Salmonella infantis, and Hepatitis A 1b), and our hypothesis is supported by recent veterinary research identifying the rare epidemic STEC strain in Serbian swine populations. Most raspberries in Serbia are grown in remote upland areas by small farming families and pigs are often the source of organic fertiliser on raspberry canes. The value of blended AI is in the integraton of AI pattern recognition with supply-chain data which can drastically accelerate root cause analysis in complex foodborne outbreaks, enabling faster product recalls and preventing cross-border transmission. Dr Jeff Banks, Food Safety Assurance |
| 14:00 | Biofilms and detection strategies Biofilms are communities of micro-organisms found in nearly all environments on Earth, and represent the dominant mode of bacterial life. Bacteria in biofilms possess physiologies unique to this phenotype, which affect their ability to grow, propagate, and survive diverse treatments we use to manage them. In the food industry, this affects the efficacy of methods used to detect and decontaminate bacteria from the food processing environment and on the foods themselves. Consideration of the biofilm phenotype in detection strategies for bacterial contamination in food will shape the way in which these methods are employed by industry. The effective use of established and emerging technologies for biofilm detection will have a profound impact on the microbial safety of food, and reduce the risk of outbreaks of foodborne disease. Dr Callum Highmore, National Biofilms innovation Centre |
| 14:40 | Refreshment break and an opportunity to view the exhibits |
| 14:55 | The impact of climate change on the UK food system This presentation looks at how climate change is reshaping the UK food system, from production through to food safety and regulation, and what recent UK policy developments mean for how well the system can keep pace with change. Dr Saher Hasnain, Roskilde University |
| 15:25 | Cereulide: Exploring the relationship between growth behaviour and cereulide production in Bacillus cereus Annette Sansom, Campden BRI |
| 16:00 | Q&A and Chairman’s closing comments |
Speakers
Dr Jeff Banks, Food Safety Assurance
Dr Jeff Banks is a food quality and safety professional with more than 45 years’ experience. He holds a degree in Applied Biology and a PhD in Food Microbiology. After academic work he became the Microbiology Department Head at Campden Food Research. He has deep knowledge and experience in all segments of the food processing sector. He has assessed or audited over 1200 plants in over 80 countries and claims to remember all of them. He has held senior leadership positions in R&D, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs in global food business such as DuPont, Cadbury-Schweppes, Kraft Foods and Barry Callebaut. Jeff feels equally comfortable in the board room, on the plant floor or in courts of law. He currently applies his knowledge to support clients in the food sector manage food safety and quality risks; ensure regulatory compliance and develop innovative solutions to complex technical challenges. He specialises in root cause analysis and incident management. He is an expert witness and has successfully applied his talents in legal cases in several countries for both defence and prosecution and in the International Court of Arbitration. He claims to have a 100% record of success - but still believes that prevention is much better than litigation. Over the years he has been sought out by businesses in crisis caused by microbes. Jeff has successfully resolved major microbiology incidents involving Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and E. coli, typically during and after outbreaks of foodborne disease involving significant morbidity and mortality. Most of the time, however, Jeff works in the shadows, without publicity - the unseen hand at work – preventing problems, avoiding withdrawals and recalls and de-risking the food supply chain. As a footnote, he is a proud father of an even more famous microbiologist, Dr Emma Banks, Royal Society Fellow 2023 based at the prestigious John Innes Institute in the UK.
Dr Kathryn Callaghan, FSA
Kathryn Callaghan is the team leader for the microbiological risk assessment team in the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and leads on microbiological incident risk assessment response. Following a PhD in microbiology and microbial genetics at the University of Reading, Kathryn joined the Department of Health’s food safety team, followed by the FSA in 2000. She moved to the Department of Health and Social Care in 2014 to focus on nutrition legislation, working with the EU Commission on health claims made on food and laying the Foods for Specific Groups (England) 2016 legislation before Parliament. In 2017, she joined Defra’s Chief Scientific Advisors Office where she led projects to expand the Defra group’s international science partnerships. She returned to the FSA at the end of 2022 and is the technical lead for the FSA’s AMR research and evidence programme.
Robbie McGill, Campden BRI
Robbie joined Campden BRI in 2018 after obtaining his master’s degree in advanced chemical and process engineering from the University of Strathclyde. Robbie now works as a non-thermal specialist in the Process Innovation team within the consulting technology department, providing feasibility testing, validation, and training in many novel processes. Robbie has also undertaken many research projects and has published multiple New Technologies bulletins.
Prof Rachel Chalmers, Public Health Wales
Rachel Chalmers has been Director of the national Cryptosporidium Reference Unit (Swansea, Public Health Wales) since January 2000, providing the national reference service including laboratory testing, genotyping, investigation of outbreaks and provision of advice on the management and control of Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora. Current research includes detecting and genotyping gastrointestinal protozoa in clinical, food, water and environmental samples, investigating the long-term health effects of infection, assessing public health risks from different sources, and developing intervention and prevention strategies and guidance. In 2013 she was made Honorary Professor in Swansea Medical School.
Dr Callum Highmore, National Biofilms innovation Centre
Dr Callum Highmore is a research fellow at the National Biofilms Innovation Centre, based at the University of Southampton. His work has focused on novel detection strategies for microbial detection. His research contributed to the national discussion around chlorine washing foods following Brexit, and more recently he has been advancing the use of Raman spectroscopy as an infection diagnostic and antimicrobial resistance characterisation capability.
Dr Saher Hasnain, Roskilde University
Saher Hasnain is an Assistant Professor in Food Systems and Food Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. Previously, she was a researcher in the University of Oxford's Food Systems Transformation Programme. Her work focuses on interdisciplinary food systems research, with particular interests in food system resilience, sustainability, and the impacts of environmental change on food system activities. She is involved in several international research collaborations, including FEAST and FoSSNet.
Annette Sansom, Campden BRI
Annette has a wealth of knowledge and experience from working at Campden BRI since 1998, always within Microbiology.
Annette’s food and drink industry interests are: microbiology including bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa; food safety; food spoilage; fresh produce microbiology including vertical farming and methods to describe microbial populations.
Please note copies of the presentations will not be available on the day but a recording of the event will be made available within a few days of the event for registered delegates.